He looked straight at me and fired, he seemed so calm: Survivor recalls moment she came face to face with killer
By PAUL SIMS
For several terrifying seconds, Carol Youngs stared directly into the eyes of Derrick Bird and then down the barrel of his gun.
There was no time to think or move. As they returned glances, he pressed the firearm - complete with sight - into his shoulder and took aim.
Mrs Youngs, 48, was leaning over the body of Bird's first victim, a taxi driver, in Duke Street, Whitehaven, attempting to save the man's life, despite his terrible injuries.
Survivor: Carol Youngs, pictured with her husband Jed, feared she would be killed by Derrick Bird
Her phone was clamped to her ear as she spoke to an emergency operator.
Then the mother of four saw Bird and her heart stopped. Moments later he pulled the trigger and, as the noise of the gunshot rang out, he claimed his second victim of the morning.
The bullet she believes was intended for her hit a passer-by standing on the pavement only feet from where she was crouching.
Showing not a flicker of emotion, Bird - wearing a black fleece and black trousers - lowered the gun and walked away around the corner.
'It was utterly terrifying,' Mrs Youngs told the Mail yesterday. 'He looked straight at me and fired.
'He seemed so cool and calm. He didn't appear to be agitated. He wasn't shouting at anyone. He didn't even run away. It was just unbelievable.'
Mrs Youngs had left her home for a 10am appointment at the Absolute Beauty salon. She had been there for half an hour when they heard the first gunshot ring out.
'It sounded like a car backfiring,' she said. 'Some of the girls in the shop and the women went to the door and the window. At that time we had no idea what was going on.
'I saw the taxi driver fall to the ground and I just ran out to help him. I thought he'd just collapsed with health problems. I never suspected that he had been shot.
'I ran over to see if he was OK and then realised that a large section of his face was missing. The entire left side of his face was gone.
'I rang 999 straight away and told the operator, "A man has been shot in the face in Duke Street". The woman asked me to check for a heartbeat and a pulse but I couldn't find one.
'He was already dead. There was very little blood, mainly concentrated at the back of his head.
'I looked up and saw the gunman and he looked at me. He seemed so cool and calm. The butt of the gun was resting on the floor and he was holding the top of it.
'He then picked it up and pointed it at me. I shouted, "He's coming back, he's coming back".
Shock: A police officer lays a floral tribute in Whitehaven, close to where Mrs Youngs was confronted by Bird after he shot a taxi driver
'Everyone was screaming and running away. Then he fired. It missed me but hit the guy who was stood just a few feet away. He fell to the ground and rolled over several times.
'When he finally got to his feet his T-shirt, from back to front, was saturated in blood.'
Bird then lowered his gun and walked away. 'He was so cool,' said Mrs Youngs, who works in a children's home in Whitehaven. 'He didn't look angry. He was just so calm.'
She said she cannot be sure that the bullet was intended for her but in that moment she feared she was about to become Bird's second victim. 'I don't know if he was deliberately aiming the gun at me or if he was just letting off one more shot or if he had come back to make sure the guy was dead,' she added.
'I don't think I'll ever know what his intention was but in that moment he looked straight at me.' Mrs Youngs, a grandmother of two, said she leapt to her feet and ran back into the shop.
'I was still on the phone to 999 at the time and I think the last thing I said to the operator was that the police are here.
'One of the people from the nearby sandwich shop had run out and placed two towels over the body.
'The policeman then ran over, took off his fluorescent jacket and laid it over the man's head before running off after the gunman. He shouted, "Get inside and stay inside. Lock the front and back door".'
Mrs Youngs, whose 44-yearold husband Jed is an engineer, said she believed Bird had been at the wheel of his Picasso when he shot dead the taxi driver before parking the car and getting out.
'He was just so relaxed,' she added. 'He quietly went about his business, calmly turned and just walked away.'
The split second decisions that meant life or death
Terrified witnesses told how they watched in horror as their neighbours and friends became victims as Derrick Bird went on his senseless killing spree through five towns.
He struck first in WHITEHAVEN, where joiner Brian Edwards, 67, came face-to-face with the killer just moments after he shot a taxi driver, believed to be his first victim.
Mr Edwards said: 'There were four shots and I looked round to see a taxi driver lying on the pavement. Seconds before, he had been standing in a doorway having a cigarette just ten feet away from us.
Crime scene: Police inspect a taxi cab in Whitehaven, where two people were killed
'He was just blasted in the head by the gunman at point-blank range. Then a man carrying a rifle with a large telescopic sight on it went past just feet away and fired again.
'The gunman didn't say anything but went along the pavement and disappeared down the next street.'
Bird passed terrified mother Caroline McCarthy, a Whitehaven resident who was shopping with her young daughter when she heard the gunfire.
'He was so close, he was inches away,' she said. 'He had a big black shotgun. He was holding it up to his eye and he was pointing it across the street.
'I got on the phone to my husband and said, "Run, hide - there's a man here that's gone crazy and he's shooting people at random".'
Bird returned to his car and drove through Whitehaven with his gun hanging out of his window, past the police station and pulled up next to driver Alan Hannah.
Mr Hannah, 68, of nearby Great Broughton, said: 'A car pulled up on the left, stopping at the lights. All I saw was this man with a gun with the windscreen shattered.
'I just went through the red light.... I just got the hell out of Whitehaven.'
Such split-second decisions meant the difference between life and death yesterday morning. Bird next headed south to EGREMONT.
Gary Toomey, 38, was working from home when he heard shots and saw a car speeding away.
The body of a shooting victim lies covered with sheets in the village of Egremont
He ran downstairs and found a man bleeding heavily on his doorstep, gasping for help.
Mr Toomey said: 'I saw a car screeching off and a man saying, "Help me". He was bleeding heavily from the side of his face.
'He said he dived out of the way of the shot and the man in the car pointed the gun down and shot him again in the back from about six feet away as he lay on the floor.'
Billy Boakes, 23, left his house in Egremont after also hearing shots. He said: 'I went outside and saw the body of the woman lying outside my house. She was just on the pavement with a couple of shopping bags in her hand.
'There were two more people just further down the road and nothing happened to them. It was obviously the case of him just shooting random people.'
The trail of death continued as Bird drove south into the village of SEASCALE, still shooting seemingly at random.
Resident John Cook said he saw three bodies on a single street.
Floral tributes lay on the streets of Whitehaven in the wake of the shooting spree
'I thought a person had just collapsed,' he said. 'Then I went another 50 or 60 yards further on and saw a cyclist. It looked as if something had happened to them, there was a blanket over them.'
Another resident, John Reeves, said he recognised one of the victims as a pensioner, one of twin sisters who lived near him.
He said: 'I heard that he stopped the car and called her over. He wound down the window and then he shot her.'
Local GP Barry Walker had to certify two of the victims dead and treated another for his injuries.
Dr Walker said: 'I'm just amazed by the deliberateness and the callousness of shooting people in the street.
'These were just indiscriminate killings. We are talking about people lying on the pavements with really serious gun shot injuries.
'I have never seen gunshot injuries like this. There was blood flowing in the streets.' From Seascale, Bird drove to GOSFORTH, where a resident described how he shot a young farmer, named locally as Garry Purdham.
A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said the father of two was trimming hedges with his uncle when Bird drove past, casually wound down his car window and blasted him.
Finally, Bird drove inland to BOOT, where he pulled up next to a pub landlord and shot him.
Sean King, a pub manager, said he knew the victim only as Harry, the landlord of the Woolpack pub.
He said: 'He (Bird) pulled up in his car and just let loose inside the car and shot him in the arm. He is OK, he is in hospital.
'It seems like it was just a man at the end of his tether and he has gone on a shooting
SOURCE MAILONLINE
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